Washington, DC — The U.S. military killed an Iranian leader who led an attempted assassination plot against President Donald Trump, War Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed on Wednesday.
“We’ve known for a long time that Iran had intentions on trying to kill President Trump and/or other U.S. officials,” Hegseth told reporters in the Pentagon’s briefing room in an update on Operation Epic Fury. “And while that was not the focus of the effort by any stretch of the imagination, in fact, never raised by the president or anybody else, I ensured, and others ensured, that those who were responsible for that were eventually part of the target list.”
While not specifying who the target was, the secretary said that “Iran tried to kill President Trump and President Trump got the last laugh.”
Federal investigators believed that there was an Iranian plot to assassinate Trump during his 2024 presidential campaign, Breitbart News reported.
Trump highlighted the foiled scheme on Sunday when talking about the joint U.S.-Israeli operation that eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, telling ABC News, “I got him before he got me.”
Hegseth also reported that the U.S. will soon “have complete control” of Iranian skies, praising the last four days of Operation Epic Fury as “incredible and “historic.”
“I stand before you today with one unmistakable message about Operation Eric Fury — America is winning decisively, devastatingly, and without mercy. They are toast, and they know it,” the secretary announced.
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine also spoke at the press conference, announcing that the Pentagon has “hit over 2,000 targets” in Iran to date.
Playing a video for reporters, Caine showed how a U.S. Navy fast attack submarine sunk an enemy ship using a single Mark 48 torpedo on Tuesday in the Indian Ocean — the first time an American submarine has done so since 1945.
“I want to remind everybody that this is an incredible demonstration of America’s global reach,” the Air Force general said. “To hunt, find, and kill an out-of-area deployer is something that only the United States can do at this type of scale.”
According to Hegseth, the Iranian Navy is no longer a “factor.”
“Pick your adjective, it is no more,” the war chief asserted.
“We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory, and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces,” Caine said.
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
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